This is a Message Board Post that is gatewayed to this mailing list. Surnames: Zook, Watson, Matthews, VanSant, Howard, Farwell, Reid, Hudson, Dugger, Hopkins, Sapp, Hydinger Classification: Biography Message Board URL: http://boards.ancestry.com/mbexec/msg/rw/ok.2ADE/4161 Message Board Post: 1.--IOWA HANDBOOK for 1856, by Nathan H. Parker, page 29: "....between the waters of Grand River, the Nodaway, and the Nishnabotna, the open prairie is often 20 miles wide, without a bush to be seen higher than the wild indigo and the compass plant...." N.B.: This observation must have been made no earlier than June. Plants making up the short prairie had already died off for the year, the intermediate size plants were going to seed, and the tall prairie of summer and fall would be coming into prominence during June.--W.F. 2.-- NEBRASKA ADVERTISER. Brownsville, Nebr. Territory, Vol. IV No. 50. June 21, 1860. 3 - 2.--Tall Grass.--We have in our office, a stock of bottom prairie grass from the farm of Mr. L. Zook, near this city, which measures seventeen feet four inches in length! We are aware that this may sound a little fishy to those not acquainted with the productiveness of Nebraska soil.--We have the "documents" however--the grass itself. Doubters can see for themselves. 3. (Paper not known). HAMBURG, IOWA. March 13, 1879. "....The broad acres of this vicinity are now being liberally seeded with timothy, and to a less extent with bluegrass. The outside range for cattle has nearly given out, and every large farmer must have his meadows. The prairie grass and hay of Western Iowa is about as good as timothy (not as good for producing butter as clover) but being seedless, and springing up from the roots, IT WILL NOT STAND CONSTANT PASTURING...." 4.-- THE SIDNEY ARGUS - HERALD. (Date not known). "Alfalfa's Early Struggle".-- The biggest barn in the world near Kearney, Nebraska, is being torn down. It is the H. D. Watson barn, built by the the "alfalfa king" at the turn of the twentieth century. Its present owner, William Wright, is having it torn down for the simple reason that he has no use for it, its foundations are crumbling, it needs paint, and it is considered unsafe. Much of the lumber is proving worthless but that which can be salvaged is being sold. There is considerable history behind this old barn, a sight which has made more than one eastern tourist whizzing westward along the Lincoln highway blink his eyes in amazement. Its 300 feet of length, 100 feet width and 56 feet height have been enough to command attention of thousands. H. D. Watson, who always did things in a big way on his famous old "1733 ranch," built the barn about 1900 when he was trying to sell the middle west on the idea of growing alfalfa. At the time, he was raising alfalfa on approximately 1,000 acres of fertile Platte valley land west of Kearney. For three years he harvested this alfalfa, three cuttings a year,and still could find little market for it. His fields were full of stacks and he offered it to the neighboring farmers for almost nothing but they insisted their cattle would not eat it and it made their horses sick. Finally he went to Mexico and arranged for some sheep owners to bring in 50,000 head and he sold the alfalfa to them for a dollar a ton. Even then, there were tons of the feed left in the spring which had to be burned. Still unwilling to give up his conviction that alfalfa was the right kind of feed to be grown in the midwest, Mr. Watson decided to build the largest barn in the world and feed the hay to his own cattle. When it was finished--it loomed up like a skyscraper in the prairies--he purchased 4000 head of fine Holstein cows and fed them there. The milk and butter from this herd supplied most of the dining cars along the Union Pacific system. The barn was equipped with stanchions for 4000 cows, and the entire upper part of the barn was used for storage of hay. At the rear was built an immense silo. It was dug into a hillside which backed the rear of the barn and the sides were bricked up. The bottom of the silo was on the level with the top of the barn. While the ordinary silo today holds silage from about ten acres of corn, this one held at least 160 acres. Although Mr.Watson convinced the midwest that alfalfa was the logical feed, his project proved to be a losing venture for him financially and for the last 30 years tenants have come and gone from the old Watson ranch, one as puzzled as the other as to a use for the biggest barn in the world. N.B.--During the 1930 's and '40's, putting up the hay was a big day for farmers. The farmers in southeastern Prairie township (Walt Matthews, Claude VanSant, Clyde Howard, Clyde Farwell, Jim Reid, Oscar Hudson, Jack Dugger, Mrs. Almeda Hopkins, Elmer Sapp, __?__ Hydinger, and probably others I have forgotten) would come to help each other on these days. Some would bring their teams and hay racks, others just their pitch fork, some would work in the hay mow, there'd be a water boy and a hay fork boy; several of their wives would also help feed the hay crew at noon. But when the soldiers came home from the second World War, they had a strong adversion to sitting behind a horse's tail, saying, that they had chased Hitler all over Europe and they were not just about to chase a horse after returning home. Hay balers were very much in by 1950, and the horse was fast disappearing.....Younger kids here around Tipton don't know what putting up hay means.--W.F.